I've posted this before and I don't think its ever gone anywhere but I think it would add to the strategy of the game and with the proper implimentation could be a detriment to the tanking 101 teams.

Scouting.

Currently there is the potential for a team to tie up 80 million per season in scouting. (Don't shoot me yet) I know there is no reason why any HBD owner would waste 20 million in each catagory, so I post it only to help make a point. We scout 3 locations, HS, COL and INT thats potentially 60 million.

My proposal is to combine the high school / college scouts into one lump sum, and diversify the pool by regions. According to baseball-almanac.com (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php) historically 15,681 players have come from the US, 564 from the Dominican Republic, 286 from Venezuela, 234 from Puerto Rico, 237 from Canada, and it drops like a rock from there. So that gives us 4 main international regions, 4 regions in the us (NE, S, Central and West) and the rest of the world. I propose that we take the maximum 60 million that we can 'location' scout with and allow owners to split that amoung the 9 or so regions mentioned above. In theory someone wanting to cover all locations could spend a bit over 6 million in each region and get average results, but you can still use the same vision ratio that is there currently allowing teams to go all in in some regions and stay out of others. I don't propose that potential pool size be different or based on historical numbers, simply because who would spend a lot of money on 'rest of the world' when such a small percentage of players come from there.

I think this would add strategy, reward teams for taking a potential risk, (provided that I can't see were my competition specifically spent his money) only how much is alocated overall.

I'll add some additonal thoughts on specific scouting, possiblity of loyalty etc as the post goes on. What do you all think?

This could be added to MikeT23's suggestion of randomized improvement. Also the players should have a hidden rating that correlates to the make up / patience / temper ratings be giving a potential ratings boost (over and above the DIR, which realistically take a guy from career Lo A to career Hi A most of the time). That would mean that every once in a while a time will strick gold with a drafted player from the later rounds. Also a guy brought in as an IFA filler could potentially blossom into a contributor down the road.

Im basically arguing for a little more randomness, most veterans can 'math' the game as it is now, predicting outcomes to a high decree of certainty. A little randomness might help.

This is just a "wish" item. I stumbled upon the idea in a thread griping about coach hiring when someone sarcastically mentioned "scout hiring". Anyway, I'm not sure if it's practical to program but I think it would be pretty nice and add a handful of options/strategy to scouting(which is pretty much hands off except for budgeting). Thanks in advance for taking the time to read the following.

The concept:
Each 1m you allot "buys" you one scout. This applies to Int'l, HS and college. Scouts are of equal ability(for the most part).

Each country will be a seperate entity for international scouts. The US will be split up into regions(15 is what I'm thinking. Probably by state). The regions will not be equal nor will they produce the same quality/quantity of players. The same applies to countries.

The owner assigns a scout to a region(for HS or college) or a country(for internationals). Domestically, a scout in a region will find the top 5 players and 25(or whatever) other players of varying ability. If two scouts are placed in the same region, the numbers will double. Obviously college scouts will only report on college players. Internationally, each scout will find up to 8 players(or whatever # is chosen). These will be random and there will be no guarantee that you see the best 8. You will simply see the first 8 he finds. Doubling up scouting will double the number of prospect found.

Regions/Countries:
At the beginning of the season, before scouts are assigned, the owners will be sent a report giving the number of colleges in each region, the number of high school seniors playing ball in each region and the number of international prospects in each country. Again, the only constant from season to season would be the number of colleges playing baseball from each region. I'd recommend varying the number of colleges per region during set-up as opposed to making each region the same "size" to add to strategy.

During the arbitration process, the owner will assign scouts based upon these reports/personal strategy. If an owner fails to assign scouts, they will default to previous season settings and/or one scout to the most populated region on down until scouting budget runs out.

Overall scouting
For each 2m spent domestically, the owner will see the top overall player regardless of region. This will not "add" a player to scouted regions but simply ensures he sees the top player(s).

7/25/2007 4:58 PM

Customer Support

Mike,

We have some ideas and we are currently discussing how to expand the role of Scouts in HBD. We will take these thoughts into consideration when we cross that bridge. Thanks!.

Yeah, mike I think you sent that to me the last time I brought this up. I know its a little like buying a lottery ticket and expecting a win. But it would be nice to have some additional strategy to use. Once you get through the preseason stuff, there isn't much to do but roster housekeeping each day until the draft, then a few hectic days then nothing again till the playoffs. I would love to have to decide where my scouting money is spent and maybe I find a great player every two or three seasons, because I was one of a few teams spending money in a certain place. Now, meh.

Seriously though, several months ago mike and i traded some thoughts on this forum about how scouting could be diversified. There are some pretty neat things that could be done to it, in order to allow teams to work their own strategies. But the overall development mentality of Fox Sports doesn't seem to include much budget for innovation, as much as tightening things up and making small game play adjustments.

It will never happen, it would be a whole new engine unto itself. There would be to much developers time ($$$) to do it. You would need Asia, Central and South America, and Europe. Then try to limit countries, then how much money, does each region (or country) develop the same number of prospects or does the local follow the rough distribution of current and former ML and minor league players? Then I your the only person scouting say South Korea, are you the only person to see those players, or does each team still have a small 10% or less chance of seeing someone there? And if you spend 3 million somewhere and I spend 1 million, do you see three times as many prospects, or do you have a better feel for their potential or a combination of both. Lots of development time for something that only a few people seem to be interested in.